I've been working this summer through the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel. This is my sermon on David and Goliath. While the story is a familiar one, it still has much to say (perhaps too much, was David spoiling for a fight?) to us about our lives today. There was a time when the church was a Goliath, a massive, monolithic entity that held a near monopoly on American's social, religious, charitable, and family lives. Now, we're a lot leaner than we once were, and need to relearn the strategies of David if we are going to continue to survive in an increasingly competitive world. Here's a link to the NRSV text for that day: 1 Samuel 17:38-54.
The Old Testament reading for this week comes from 1 Samuel
17. It’s the story of David and Goliath. And reading it again this week
reminded me of an article I read a couple of years ago, by Malcolm gladwell,
talking about the Davids and Goliaths in our world (Here’s the link: www.gladwell.com/2009/2009_05_11_a_david.html)
and how when the two clash, things don’t always go as expected.
In
the article, Gladwell talks about a 7th and 8th grade
girls basketball team in Silicon Valley, consisting of a bunch of girls who
weren’t exactly all star athletes. Many of them had never played basketball
before. Compared to the teams full of experienced players who had been playing
together for years (and winning), this team was quite the David. And like
David, instead of challenging their Goliaths in the traditional strategies of
warfare (or basketball), they chose to take an unusual tactic.
Their
coach was an American immigrant named Vivek Ranadivé. He grew up playing soccer
and cricket, and though he understood the rules, he was baffled by the
strategies that most teams employed. Much of each play is made up of
choreographed formalities. The defense gives ground, jogging down to their end
of the court to get set. The point guard walks the ball down the court, calling
a play that the team has run hundreds of times in practice, carefully choreographed
to get an open shot. When the offense reaches an appointed point, suddenly the
defense starts to play again, matching up against players or defending zones,
challenging passes and trying to block shots. What
Ranadivé realized was that the
current strategy of basketball served to expand the differences between
stronger and weaker teams. It expanded the influence of greater ball-handling
skill, good shooting, well-executed play, and effective post-play (i.e. tall
players).
When weaker teams played traditional
strategies, they tilted the playing field in favor of Goliath. In short, when
you go to battle fighting by Goliath’s rules, you’ve already lost. This is what
Goliath wanted when he went in to battle David, right? He wants to fight on an open field,
with the weapons he’s been training with. He wants the fight to be one-on-one,
where he won’t accidentally trip over a comrade, or get whacked by an errant
spear thrust, or swarmed and overwhelmed by a bunch of people at once. He wants
to tilt the field in his favor. This is the nature of Goliaths. When you begin
to accumulate power and influence you use that power and influence to make
things easier on yourself. You tilt the playing field in your favor.
Now
over the years the mainstream church has accumulated remarkable amounts of
influence and power, and have managed to tilt the playing field in our favor.
Business hours are constructed to fit the religious schedule, and blue laws
once prevented business from opening on Sunday mornings helped encourage people
to go to church. Often churches were powerbrokers within cities, in which
everyone of significance was a member of a church, and nothing could be done in
a town without their support. { In the 50’s and 60’s, which was the height of
membership and success for mainstream churches, the church so dominated the
local landscape that nearly every social function existed or operated through
the church in some way. }
However,
many of the advantages that the church once held are evaporating. TV and Radio
stations no longer give Sunday morning programming over to churches, making
people a little bit more likely to find themselves on a couch instead of a pew
on Sunday morning. Little League coaches no longer avoid scheduling practice or
games on Sunday mornings. Prominent political and religious scandals have
stained the church’s image, and young people grow up with a very different idea
of who the church is than their parents did. In short, the Church is no longer
the Goliath it once was. The playing field is no longer tilted in our favor.
In
spite of this change in the church’s status over the last 60 years, the church
hasn’t adapted new strategies. The church continues to act as if it had the
favored status and a dominant social position that it no longer holds. We’ve attempted to freeze ourselves in
time, acting as if we’re still in the fifties while the rest of the world has
long passed into the 21st century. Much of the liturgy that we use
today was considered innovative when it first came into use, and instead of
continuing to innovate in our liturgy, we’ve built walls around it and try to
keep it from changing. Instead of searching for our own voice, however, we’ve
chosen to wrap ourselves in the familiar. We still imagine that we have a
monopoly on Sunday morning, instead of acknowledging that we’re competing
against more other options and activities than we ever have before. We still
believe that we have the moral high ground, instead of the reality that the
church’s image in the public has been trashed by years of being used as a
political football, and by scandals of every type and nature.
In
short, we’re like David trying to wear Saul’s armor. In our desire to pretend
like we’re still what we once were, we’ve burdened ourselves with a century of
baggage, and we’re weighed down by attitudes and approaches that now only serve
to tilt the playing field against us. Should David have bowed to convention and
worn the armor and used the weapons of King Saul, he would have lost the battle
before he took the field. The armor was such a burden that he could barely
walk. The shepherd’s strength and skill with a spear were nothing compared to
Goliath’s. If David had come at Goliath with the spear and the shield, he would
have been defeated without a doubt.
David
knew that he couldn’t approach Goliath with a traditional strategy. David knew
who he was, and he knew where his skill lay. Instead of fighting the battle on
Goliath’s terms, he tilted the playing field back in his favor. He went to
battle unencumbered except for his sling, and pulled five smooth stones from
the river. We know what happens next. He speeds up the game. He runs at
Goliath, and before Goliath can take aim with his spear or swing his sword
David has lept up and slung a rock straight at his forehead. Goliath is felled
even before he has a chance to take advantage of his strength.
As
for that basketball team, instead of giving up ¾ of the court, Ranadive taught
his inexperienced girls basketball team to take advantage of their strengths,
instead of playing to the strengths of the Goliaths of the basketball world.
They refused to give up the half-court, and pressed 100% of the time.
Traditional teams didn’t know what to do with them. They played defense so well that other teams often couldn’t
get the first inbounds pass. And because they often got the ball right under
the opposing teams basket, they never had to make long shots or run the crisp
offensive plays the Goliaths were so good at. They went up by ten, fifteen, one
time even twenty-five points. This team, which could hardly have expected to
win many games, managed to make it all the way to the national tournament. They
won their first three games, and ended up one game away from the national
championship. All because they refused to play the game according to Goliath’s
rules. They refused to put on Saul’s armor.
If
the mainstream church is going to have a future, we have to stop assuming that
the playing field is tilted towards us. We have to stop acting like a Goliath,
and counting on our own strength and traditions to fight our battles for us. We
will have to learn to behave more like David than Goliath. We’ll need to become
unconventional in our desire to spread the Gospel. We’ll need to break the
traditional rules of warfare, and even experience some condemnation and shame
from those who would be more comfortable if we played Goliath’s game. We can no
longer count on superior strength or numbers or societal protection or superior
social status to call people to join communities of faith.
Like
David, we must recognize who we are and where our advantages are. We must
embrace the communities that we are, instead of pretending to be who we were,
and move into the future pressing every advantage that we have, trusting fully
in God’s power to help us adjust to a new game, adapt new strategies, and tilt
the playing field towards our own strengths and advantages. We just have to
take off Saul’s armor.
No comments:
Post a Comment